Nothing Can Rescue Me by Elizabeth Daly

it its present name. She plodded stoutly forward, a self-contained small figure in a cheap plaid coat.
    â€œShe’ll get rained on, I’m afraid,” said Gamadge. Miss Burt, following his glance, remarked that that hat could stand it, and then sat down and began to talk to Sylvanus Hutter; who, rather to Gamadge’s surprise, was at the end of the table opposite Florence Mason. Mason sat at her left hand.
    Miss Wing proved a pleasant, if reserved, table companion. She talked readily about books and plays, but seemed to have missed seeing Julius Caesar in modern dress, the more recent Hamlets , and a memorable performance of Doctor Faustus .
    When at last Miss Burt turned to him, she responded to his conversational efforts without animation. She had put Gamadge down as merely benevolent, and therefore a weariness and a waste of time.
    â€œMrs. Mason says you used to be her secretary, Miss Burt,” said Gamadge at last.
    â€œI was no good at it. I never could type properly, and I never was any good at arithmetic.”
    â€œI’d forgotten the typing. I can’t type properly myself, never shall.”
    â€œNeither shall I.”
    â€œDo you use one finger, as I do?”
    â€œYes, and I break my nails.”
    The nails in question were lacquered cunningly to match her hair; Gamadge, looking at them with awe, asked: “What do you like to do?”
    â€œI like to play bridge. Now that you’re here I hope we can get up two tables. It’s so awful cutting in.”
    â€œI can only stay until to-morrow.”
    â€œTo-morrow!” She looked surprised and pleased.
    â€œYes. Pretty hopeless, solving this problem of the typescript in that length of time?”
    â€œIt was just a joke; nobody will ever find out who did it.”
    â€œYou don’t know me. What are you doing now, Miss Burt? When you’re in town, I mean.”
    â€œNothing. There aren’t any jobs. Mrs. Mason wanted Mrs. Deedes to give me one in her shop, but there’s no room. I wanted to try for the movies long ago, but Mother wouldn’t let me, and now I’m too old.”
    â€œMr. Percy ought to be in the movies.”
    She cast a black look across the table at Percy, and said: “He couldn’t act.”
    â€œNot even in private?”
    â€œIn private he could—with girls. You know how Southern men are.”
    â€œNo; how are they?”
    â€œI mean with girls. They always behave as if they were in love with them all.”
    â€œRather charming.”
    â€œI think it’s horrid.”
    â€œI mean, if the girl isn’t taken in. I thought Southern men were still rather punctilious about taking people in.”
    â€œThey’re worse than anybody.”
    Luncheon had come to an end. Florence rose, everybody rose; but she did not lead the way out of the dining-room; instead, she looked truculently at her guests, and made a short and shocking speech—the thought hers, but the words dictated by her three cocktails:
    â€œI’m going to have my coffee upstairs, and you’re to have yours in the big room. Mr. Gamadge is going to ask you questions; he’s going to find out who put those things into my novel. He knows I didn’t, and he knows the spirits didn’t; that’s nonsense. He thinks it was a horrible thing to do, and if anybody doesn’t wish to answer his questions and help him find out who did it, that person can stay out of the room; but that person needn’t stay in the house.”
    Blank faces confronted her; but Sylvanus, greatly embarrassed, was the only one of the party who spoke:
    â€œFlorence. Please.”
    â€œI’m not going to be polite about it. I mean everybody.”
    Mason looked aghast. He stood gripping the back of his chair, his eyes fixed on his wife.
    â€œI’m serious about this,” said Florence, “and it’s time you all were, too. For your own sakes, you’d better do what